Building Out a Bitchin’ Sprinter Van

Building Out a Bitchin’ Sprinter Van

By Steve Casimiro | May 12, 2016

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Cy Sutton has had his hands in so many cool things, it was probably only a matter of time until he turned his creative energies to pimping out a Sprinter, in this case one with a 170-inch wheelbase. The van had housed a mobile pet grooming business, which apparently had suffered a flood and rather than drying and fixing the flooring, the previous owners simply added more flooring on top of the wet. Sutton’s demo took out hundreds of pounds of unnecessary weight and a scary amount of mold.

“I realized that I needed to remove everything and start from scratch,” he writes. “I knew coming up with good design was key. I needed a well thought out space that served multiple functions and had built-in incentives for keeping my stuff orderly. I spent a lot of time prioritizing my needs and thinking about how to most simply address those needs.”

In the end, open space and flexibility were key. He wanted a wood stove to avoid problems with propane heaters. He wanted a kitchen and a fridge and enough solar power to drive the fridge, not just his laptop.

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Working with a friend and an electrician, the buildout took about nine days spread over two and a half weeks. The final cost was around $8,000 (plus van).

So awesome! I have a quick question. I’m considering hanging a hammock from the front rafters over the driver’s seat, instead of my bolt directly to the frame. I see you have your hammock down the center, but I can’t see what you have it mounted to run the front. Any chance you have had success mounting it to the rafter in the center?